Cody Horton grew up as the oldest of his family’s 10 children in a small town in the Texas panhandle. At an early age, he learned what it felt like to be excluded because of race and skin color.

After high school, his family didn’t have the resources or connections to jump start his life with a job or college, so he enlisted in the Navy. His naval recruiter was intentional about recruiting diverse candidates for an officer training program. Cody was selected and earned a commission as a naval officer. That experience changed his life and inspired him to make a difference in the lives of others. Cody is the Founder of Diverse Recruiting Experts LLC. Over the years, his teams have hired thousands of people into life-changing jobs at amazing organizations. Prior starting his company, Cody spent over 20 years in leadership roles in the US Navy, Walmart, Microsoft, Dell, Deloitte, Rackspace, Thoughtworks, and Sunpower.

In this episode of What I Wish I Knew with Mike Irwin & Simon Daw, Cody covers the keys to building resilience, adopting a diversity and inclusion mindset, and why culture fit can be a misguided goal.

Steph Barry lives at the intersection of curiosity and growth. From traveling the world as a kid to working around the world in her business, Steph’s inherent curiosity about people and how things work has led her to leading roles in B2B, B2C, public and private companies, higher education, and as an entrepreneur. She has held senior leadership positions with organizations such as Hunter Douglas, Solatube International, Hunter Douglas, the University of California San Diego, and WD-40. She has lived in five countries and speaks four languages. She is co-founder of Advance with AVA, a leadership development platform for women, and principal of Steph Barry Inc where she advises company owners in driving profitable and sustainable growth.

In this episode of What I Wish I Knew with Mike Irwin & Simon Daw, Steph talks about the obstacles she faced and the qualities that enabled her to navigate the world of business, across industries, and around the world.

Nicky Godding is a person of many skills, none of which were part of a master plan because she says, “I didn’t have one”. She’s a publisher and has launched award-winning magazines. Publishing, however, is her fourth career. So far.

Before magazines, Nicky ran PR campaigns for clients across Europe. She was equally likely to be flying off to glamor destinations like the South of France, Copenhagen, Paris, Lisbon, Milan, Rome and some ‘up and coming ones’ like Bucharest, Vilnius, and Sofia.

Her second career was as a secretary, she says “the only thing I’ve ever qualified for when I was young”. Her first career was as a barmaid. “This was probably the job that taught me the most about people. I think the entire world should do six months behind a bar.”

Nicky is co-founder of a publishing company, NK Media Ltd, and Editor in Chief of Business & Innovation Magazine. She’s also co-founder of Rock the Cotswolds, a campaign to highlight opportunities in a beautiful region of the UK.

In this episode of What I Wish I Knew with Mike Irwin and Simon Daw, Nicky describes taking a direction all her own with a thirst for adventure and an innate belief that she could figure things out. Hers is a worthy example for those who aspire to take the road less traveled.

Tea Colaianni has never feared setting bold goals. As a child, she decided to become the Italian ambassador to Singapore. While her law and business career took her in a different direction, impact has always been the means by which she measured what she does. Following an executive career with organizations like Hilton Hotels and Merlin Entertainments, Tea set perhaps her boldest goal of all: to make a positive difference to 5 million women and people of color across the industry globally.

Tea is the Founder and Chair of WiHTL – Women in Hospitality, Travel and Leisure, an organization whose mission is to increase women’s and ethnic minority representation across all levels of leadership in the industry. She is the Senior Independent Director on the Board of Watches of Switzerland Plc. She serves on the boards of DWF Group and SD Worx. She has also served on the boards of Bounty Brands, Criticaleye, Poundland, and others.

In this episode of What I Wish I Knew with Mike Irwin & Simon Daw, Tea shares her journey of impact, advocacy, and the determination necessary to blaze her own trail. “I really believe that no single company can make a difference alone.” She describes the process to engage enough companies to reach her goal of 5 million people.

Andrea Faulkner Williams and Brian Williams partnered to create a line of bath products for children. In just a few years, Tubby Todd Bath Co. has become famous for great products and for bringing a sense of fun to a daily chore for young families. The Tubby Todd slogan: “Good Clean Fun” is a realistic capture of what they do.

We believe the best brands are the ones that are based upon and build community. Andrea and Brian have done exactly that. Tubby Todd has 276,000 followers on Instagram, 100,000 followers on Facebook, and even a private Facebook group called Tubby Todd Mamas with 20,000 members.

In this episode of What I Wish I Knew with Mike Irwin and Simon Daw, Andrea and Brian share lessons of how they built their brand while also raising a family with four kids. Theirs is really a story of faith, family, and figuring things out. If you've ever wondered about starting a company, this is conversation you'll want to hear. And if you've ever thought about starting one with your significant other, listen to what this duo has to say.

John Creaton is CEO and co-founder of Planet Arborist, a platform designed to provide integrated support for businesses focused on sustainability. Planet Arborist works directly with producers on investment funding, business services, and ratings, and provides guidance on sustainable living.

Originally from Ireland, John has lived in Japan, London, and New York. He is now based in the UK. After starting his career as an engineer with Fujitsu in Tokyo, John spent 21 years at Goldman Sachs as a managing director. There he was responsible for global financial technology platforms, international teams, and supporting investment in external companies and markets. John has extensive experience in the UK, US, Japan, Hong Kong, Russia, Ireland, the Middle East, and India.

John and his family have been plant-based for many years. It all started in 1994 with a decision to adopt a vegetarian diet. With sustainability as a core value, John co-founded Planet Arborist.

In this episode of What I Wish I Knew with Mike Irwin & Simon Daw, John covers the journey from growing up in Ireland to serving as a local employee of Fujitsu in Japan. He describes himself as a “bit of a rebel” within Goldman Sachs…one who rose to managing director working on businesses around the world. He also pushed the importance of diversity within the firm. His focus on sustainability ultimately led to the founding of Planet Arborist.

Brandon Lowery was a professional athlete…but not in the sports he loved most. While he leaned toward the boards of skate, snow, and surf, Brandon’s athletic ability aimed him toward a professional soccer life in Europe. A crash ended his soccer career and left him wheelchair bound for two years. His experiences as a traditional sport athlete inspired him to bring the same standards, opportunities, and audiences to action sports. Brandon is CEO of USA Surfing, the national federation for the sport in the US. As president of the Global Action Sports Foundation, Brandon works to advance the support of action sports. He also develops private equity ventures, mixed-use real estate, and community programs. He serves on the Australian committee of One Young World, a global youth leadership summit, and on the board of San Diego Sport Innovators, a sports and active lifestyle industry group. He’s also a global ambassador for apparel brand, Lululemon.

In this episode of What I Wish I Knew with Mike Irwin & Simon Daw, Brandon talks about the lessons of culture and community he learned from sports and travel, the value of listening to understand others, and overcoming belief systems.

Dr. Debbie Chen has many roles in life: parent, founder, advocate, scientist…and Muay Thai fighter. It was in her role as a fighter that she faced the personal struggle of hydrating properly for her sport. The rule of thumb 8-glasses-of-water-a-day is just a guess and not one that works for all. Armed with a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Tufts University, Dr. Chen set out to solve the problem and build a business around hydration monitoring. Her company, Hydrostasis, was granted a patent in January 2021.

Starting any company is a hard thing. As a female founder, it’s even harder because of the lack of access to capital and to potential investors. In 2019, female founders received 2% of venture capital funding in the US. For context, one male-founded company, Quibi, which shutdown in 2020, raised $1.7 billion – more than the entire funding for all female-founded companies.

In this episode of What I Wish I Knew with Mike Irwin & Simon Daw, Dr. Chen describes her journey from a life in research labs to fighting in the ring to creating a company and searching for funding.

Executive recruitment has been regarded by many as a bit of a black box. Executives looking for the next role may not know how they can properly participate while companies may not recognize how to forge an effective partnership with a recruitment firm. Mike Meyrick has spent 20 years doing international executive search. Through his firm, Meyrick Consulting, he has helped clients identify talent across industry sectors and global locations.

In this episode of What I Wish I Knew with Mike Irwin & Simon Daw, Mike shares an insider’s view of executive recruitment, how the industry functions, and what he wishes that both clients and executives knew about the process.

“Starting something from scratch is the ultimate endurance event.” Ian Muir McNally is an acoustical engineer, classically trained musician, hiker, and trail runner. While training to complete the John Muir Trail in California, Ian was trying to eat real food rather than gels and sports bars. “My jaws tired from chewing raw nuts and dehydrated fruit,” he said. That led to an ultimately fruitless search for portable, easier to eat trail food made of natural ingredients. And that led to Ian trying to make stuff for his own use. Encouraged by growing interest from friends and acquaintances, Ian started Muir Energy, a sports nutrition company.

In this episode of What I Wish I Knew with Mike Irwin & Simon Daw, Ian describes his journey from music to math to mountains to making food.

“Music is a language and so are math and physics. I look at the world as a problem to solve.”   

Dr. Robert Harwood is a scientist, business strategist, food industry expert…and chorister. His first ‘job’ was as a 7-year old chorister at Exeter Cathedral. “It was like having a job anyway. We’d spend hours each week in rehearsals and then perform in front of a couple thousand people at the weekend.”

That discipline and structure – as well as courage – formed the basis for Robert’s academic studies and led him to travel the world researching bugs, jumping out of airplanes, and exploring new professional experiences. Along the way, he developed a special vacuum to collect insects based on cyclonic technology. A certain James Dyson hit on similar idea and commercialized it.

In this episode of What I Wish I Knew with Mike Irwin & Simon Daw, Robert talks about how a scientist’s curiosity and skepticism help him in resolving business challenges. And a mantra of “don’t be afraid of what you’re afraid of” has enabled him to go far outside his comfort zone.

Bryan Pate was a runner who couldn't run anymore. He liked elliptical trainers but grew weary of gym life. When he couldn't find an elliptical to ride outside, he and a partner invented one. His company, ElliptiGO, created a new category of elliptical bikes. Prior to founding ElliptiGO, he was a consultant at McKinsey, a military intelligence officer in the US Marine Corps, and as a law clerk in the US District Court.

In this episode of What I Wish I Knew with Mike Irwin & Simon Daw, Bryan talks about what drove him from Stanford to the US Marine Corps to Columbia Law School and then to starting a company.

Ann Hiatt’s first job was with a startup. At age 16. “Leaning into doing hard things,” she joined Amazon out of college and became Executive Business Partner to Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos. Amazon’s focus on securing customers rather than profit was considered risky at the time. Also a bit risky: the helicopter that Ann arranged for Bezos. Listen to hear the story.

She left Amazon to pursue a PhD at UC Berkeley but the lure of tech remained. She was recruited to Google and worked alongside Marissa Mayer on new technology and became Executive Business Partner and Chief of Staff to Google CEO Erik Schmidt. Her 15 years in leadership of the two tech giants has given her a unique perspective on the enormous role and responsibility of transformative business models. Ann now consults with executives and companies across the globe to reverse engineer their moonshot goals and get results. Ann is a sought-after international speaker, angel investor and sits on several boards in the UK. She is the author of Bet On Yourself which will be published by HarperCollins in 2021.

In this episode of What I Wish I Knew with Mike Irwin & Simon Daw, Ann talks about what she learned about innovation and leadership from her days at Amazon and Google and how the lessons of career in early stage tech apply to everyone.

As a child, Enrique Fiallo fled Cuba with his mother and literally only the clothes he was wearing. After high school, he worked for AT&T climbing telephone poles to connect service. He was the first in his family to graduate from college. He then launched an IT career working for companies like Ryder and eventually landing as CIO of Entergy. American dream complete, Enrique rose to become CEO of a company he took public on the New York Exchange. And then he went to prison.

In this episode of What I Wish I Knew with Mike Irwin & Simon Daw, Enrique talks about his journey from immigrant to public company CEO to inmate. And how he uses his own life experience to teach audiences how to make decisions based on core values.

For just about any outdoor sports or active lifestyle brand that you like, own, or want, there’s a good chance that Bob Rief has been involved. He was behind Merrill Footwear, Reef Sandals, and Sanuk, and as head of Nike Golf, he signed a college kid called Tiger Woods. Bob was also part of Callaway Golf, K2, Nordica, and Raichle-Molitor. A lifelong waterman, Bob knows the sense of authenticity and community inherent in the culture and he’s built it into every brand. He’s a held many titles: board member, CEO, founder, GM, marketing director, president, and sales manager. And he started as a gold miner.

Bob’s rare talent is maybe only matched by his commitment to help emerging entrepreneurs build their dreams. These days, he serves as executive director of San Diego Sports Innovators, a nonprofit that supports healthy living companies by fostering innovation, providing business mentorship, and building communities.

Bernie Schroeder took a tiny ad agency and built it into a billion-dollar global integrated marketing firm with thousands of employees. Along the way, he worked with Apple, Nike, Pixar, Visa, and launched brands like Yahoo!, Travelocity, eBay and Amazon. He then embarked on a journey to share what he'd learned with entrepreneurs all over the world through Ted Talks, books, teaching at universities, and mentoring startup founders in multiple countries. He's the author of Brands & Bullsh*t, Fail Fast or Win Big, Simply Brilliant, and Startup Culture Mindset. As director of the Lavin Entrepreneurship Center, Bernie has built an entrepreneur factory at San Diego State University.

Ken Charman built enterprise software start-ups that were acquired by the likes of IBM, Oracle, and SAP. He later led start-up that came out of King's College London Department of War Studies, that ran simulations and corporate wargames to test business strategy, including response to the Swine Flu epidemic, and which was later sold to Deloitte.

Ken is now the CEO of uFlexReward, a cutting edge HR company that consolidates employee costs into one real time platform. The technology was built for Unilever, underpinned by agile methodology, and has now been rolled out across Unilever globally; it’s a case study Ken presents to master’s students at the University of Oxford.

Life as an academic and tech entrepreneur may seem an unlikely route for a person suffering from dyscalculia, a condition sometimes known as dyslexia for numbers. While dyscalculia caused Ken to mistake a house number and begin a remodeling project on the wrong house as a young man, it hasn’t held him back from building companies.

Few people become professional athletes. Few of those go on to win championships. And fewer still create $100+ million companies. What are the odds of doing all three? Bryan Finnerty odds. The Detroit sports legend rode his work ethic, vision, intensity, and humility to achieve heights on and off the sports field. His is an inspiring story of personal and organizational leadership relevent to people from all walks of life.

At some point today, there’s a good chance you’ll interact with a brand that has fingerprints all over it. Not just anyone’s fingerprints, mind you, but Shawn Parr’s fingerprints. Adidas, Campbell’s, CMT, Heineken, Hilton, Mattel, MTV, Nike, Samsung, Starbucks, WD-40, and Westfield have been clients of this business transformation strategist and his team at Bulldog Drummond. Purpose is at the heart of everything he does, personally and professionally.

Following a life-changing trip to Malawi in 2004, Shawn has been committed to finding creative and sustainable ways to make a measurable difference in the world by helping people and companies realize their full potential. He sits on the board of The Honest Kitchen, FEED Projects, Kitchens for Good and International Farming, and is the co-founder of YouSchool and Y-Malawi.

Hannah Ingram-Moore is Managing Director, Co-Founder, and Workplace Strategist at the Maytrix Group. She has worked with companies such as Whittard, Gap, Fortnum & Mason, Swatch, and others to create and deliver omnichannel strategies, improve the customer journey, and boost international distribution. Hannah and her family have been honoured to be part of the global phenomenon of fundraising by her father, Captain Sir Tom Moore. Little did they know that the simple gesture of her family sponsoring Tom to walk round the garden would lead to £40 million being given to NHS Charities and the creation of The Captain Tom Foundation. Hannah and Captain Sir Tom are recipients of the George H.W. Bush Points of Light Award. In this episode of What I Wish I Knew, Hannah discusses her journey from selling her mobile phone company in Spain to Motorola to growing iconic brands around the world to helping organizations develop leadership.